


An Ichor of Violets

by song_of_orpheus



Series: Orpheus does Les Mis Ladies' Week 2018 [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: All Your Faves Are Trans, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst is very minimal, By which I mean suggestions of trauma mentioned, F/F, I suppose?, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Transphobia, Les Mis Ladies Week 2018, Modern Era, Paris - Freeform, Poetry, Romanticism, Sappho Poetry, Soft gay romance is all I'm here for, Trans Character, Trans Cosette, Trans Éponine, i don't know how to tag things i'm so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 10:06:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15289173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/song_of_orpheus/pseuds/song_of_orpheus
Summary: Éponine's a stranger to many: to Paris, to its citizens, and to the lady who watches her sing in the aching palm of the city. Music and stories are her ichor, and she finds them tangled in her hair like fruit, but this is the first time she's had the chance to find her own. Her first true love story - found caught in the summer air - and she's determined to take it.





	1. Greener Than Grass And I Am Dead

****It’s summer, which means the world is collapsing and rebirthing all at once, and Eponine is falling in love.

 

Later, she thinks it must have happened before she even knew her, somewhere between the flash of her guitar in the sunlight and the words aflame in her mouth and the heat honey-baked into her.

 

Paris. The city shimmers like a silver pebble underwater, and the air turns itself into her skin thickly. She’s pretty sure that things are going to hell again – there’s been protests and rich white men debating things and the people she always finds herself amongst harden again – but something about the daylight that day smudges all her misery and rage into contentment. The instrument laps her knees as she walks, and she curses about it loudly – she refuses to be quiet about _anything –_ but she can’t help admiring the soft wisps of clouds above her.

 

It’ll rain soon; Paris never remains dry for long, sinkhole that it is. She doesn’t mind the rain much, though, and welcomes it more than most people she meets.

 

Stepping into the shade her eyesight fizzes and blurs, but she knows what she’s doing, and sets up the amp easily. She probably won’t get much time. That’s fine. She can enjoy this golden haziness for a moment before she has to peg it away to some other crevice of the city. Eponine’s a street girl, after all.

 

Quickly, the music. The guitar moans beneath her fingers as she tunes it, the sound echoing and reverberating along the pale, narrow streets. Plucking the strings gently at first, the sound hardens into a tune and her humming blossoms into song. She must be beautiful - the rich brown hair and eyes and skin, the gold dripping from her ears and neck and wrists, the flame of her voice.

 

_God, she adores this._

 

Eponine’s voice is hoarse – oestrogen won’t change that – but sure and sturdy. Rasping gentle, like the old black-and-white women her mother loved watching on old tapes. The words are aching and delicious on her tongue, and unknown to most around here. They stare anyway because of course they do. Strangers blink and wince at her, but she flattens them into shadows. The music, the _music;_ she focuses on that, running it over her lips and fingers. Sunlight catches on her guitar and blinds her for a moment and then-

 

_God,_ she thinks. It’s not enough.

 

_Fuck._

 

There’s a woman standing a few metres away, and she seems to hold the sunlight around her like a veil. Eponine’s seen her watching a few times; you don’t forget a vision in pink like that. She’s white, with dark eyes, and Eponine wants to know what colour they are and what the bright tattoo peeking out at her wrist is.

 

Instead, she sings and sings and sings. She tries to look away for a moment, but even when she closes her eyes the sunlight is stamped on the back of her eyelids, a mirage.

 

The music swells and fades at last. She imagines it cupped like a tide between her palms. Evocative. Wild. Then the last notes burr out, and she opens her eyes to find the stranger staring back at her.

 

People around them mutter and smile and frown. A few coins fidget together in her cap by her feet. An ephemeral breeze ruffles the woman’s fine lace skirt – _impossibly_ fine – and Eponine is suddenly aware of the dull yellow of her own crooked teeth, the tears and sun-fades of her vest and shorts, the scratches on her hooped earrings. She refuses to be self-conscious, always. She doesn’t have the time. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t recognise the differences.

 

Everything about this woman, this stranger, is pristine.

 

“What was that?” the pink lady asks, voice tender and low. Absent-mindedly, she cards a hand through the sparking mahogany of her hair. Eponine’s mind jumps.

 

“Greek. Ancient,” she replies, a little sharply. She doesn’t stutter or whatever else she’s supposed to end up doing in front of gorgeous people. And, because she doesn’t want the stranger to leave, she continues: “My mother’s Greek, or thereabouts. I lived there for a while as a kid, right?”

 

_Why the fuck was that a question?_

 

She watches the woman staring at the tawny brown of her skin, which is pretty unfair because this isn’t even the whitest part of Paris, but the stranger smiles, at least. And she doesn’t ask about it, which is a blessing. Eponine’s not in the mood for White-People Ignorance today.

 

“And the song? What was that?” the other woman steps forwards, matching pink heels snapping on the cobblestone.

 

Eponine takes a breath and blinks at this lady. With a purposeful slowness, the takes the hand not on her guitar and uses it to flick her thick black dreadlocks in front of her, assembles her face into something hard. Stern.

 

“Sappho – this Greek poet, okay? But poetry back then was meant to be sung, performed.” Eponine purses her lips and takes in the dark glow of the pretty stranger’s eyes. Blue, she can see now. Dark, dark blue. “I don’t know what number that one was – they’re all numbered – but I think it’s usually called _Jealousy_ or some shit. She’s mad ‘cause her- her _lover’s_ talking to a man. I did a few others before that, but...” She trails off, sighs. She almost said Sappho’s _girlfriend_ , but… not here.

 

The people who must’ve been watching her have pretty much dispersed, but there’s a suspiciously-postured man on the street corner looking at her and she can’t deal with the police when it’s so _hot_ and _gorgeous_ outside right now, so she pulls out the aux cord and begins packing.

 

“I’m Cosette,” the pink lady blurts out. Huh. Eponine gazes back at Cosette from where she’s crouched by her guitar case, clicks her tongue, then bounces to her foot again to offer a hand. Cosette seems a little taken aback – women don’t usually do handshakes around here, of course – but not upset. In fact, she might be smiling a little wider. There’s a chip in her right incisor, and it looks fucking _adorable._

 

“Eponine. _Howdy,_ ” she says, in English, with what some might call a charming grin. Cosette snorts, pulls her white cardigan to her flushed cheek, then drops it to shake Eponine’s hand tightly. Eponine almost gasps as the August breeze catches Cosette’s perfume.

 

“You’re not American, though?” she asks, close enough that Eponine can feel her breath on her chin, and it’s then when Eponine notices that the rest of Cosette’s teeth are as crooked as her own. Not quite pristine, then.

 

“I’m a lot of things, Cosette.”

 

Eponine’s pretty sure this counts as flirting by now, but she can’t quite be mad at herself for it. What else is she going to do? She tries to remember the last time she had a drink and if she can blame it on that, but she’s been sober for a while. A couple of days, maybe.

 

Cosette isn’t saying anything. She’s timid, in a flighty kind of way, and Eponine thinks that if she traced her calloused fingers along the other woman’s throat the way she _wants_ to, she’d feel bird down there, fine as silk. The longer she stares, the darker Cosette’s eyes seem, and exquisite, polished.

 

They must make quite a striking pair, she thinks, before quickly correcting herself. They’re not a pair. They’re strangers. But pretty damn gorgeous ones, if she’ll say so herself.

 

“I would have gotten a lyre, y’know? They do electric ones, which look really fun,” she almost stammers now, “but those things are expensive as all hell, and down in the 18th we ain’t got shit for that.”

 

“It was gorgeous, Eponine,” Cosette grins with her soft lips and soft eyes and soft hair. “I’ve always been a particular fan of Sappho, _y’know_?”

 

Eponine’s breath collapses in her throat.

 

And then Cosette – wild Cosette with her sunburnt cheeks, sweet indigo eyes and tailored linen lace – _kisses her cheek._ As if that’s normal. It is, of course, but Eponine’s spent too much time in different places to remember quite always. Customs write and erase their own existences without her notice.

 

By the time she looks up properly, Cosette is walking away, branded in sunlight against the aching buildings. There’s an impression of her like a watercolour, shifting and glorious in a way that’s hard to concentrate on. Dark, _bleedingly_ dark eyes, shimmering hair. Grantaire’s shown her paintings like that, but she’s never fallen in love with a painting before.

 

Then the sun shifts and the image is gone.

 

Breathe. The _keuf_ down at the corner is still eyeing her, and as hell she can’t deal with that right now, so she slings the guitar over her shoulder, grabs the amp, and stagger-walks away in the opposite direction. Light and shadow dapple her skin through the canopy of telephone wires and awnings and arched buildings.

 

It’s only when she reaches the shared flat and opens her guitar case that she finds the card. It’s clutched against the strings like an afterthought. Pink, obviously. With a lipstick kiss on one corner and a mobile number. On the back: _‘Translate it for me, sometime?’_ with a winky face. Eponine can feel the heat of Cosette’s touch a phantom on her skin, and it rises to her cheeks, darkening them to a rich crimson.

 

_That’s_ definitely flirting.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Keuf' is verlan (French slang which reverses syllables) for 'flic' which is itself slang for police. I mostly just thought it was really neat (because slang is always splendidly intriguing, as Hugo himself knew, and since 'flic' itself probably comes from German criminal slang, I thought it would be appropriate for Eponine).
> 
> The '18th' refers to the 18ths arrondissement of Paris (arrondissements being sections of the city totalling twenty in a snail-shell pattern starting at the Louvre). I believe (from what the internet tells me, that is) the 18th is more of a working-class area, and has a higher population of colour than other areas of the city.


	2. But All Is To Be Dared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Building a home is a funny thing, and Eponine never expected to have one be such a fairytale, or to find one in someone else's arms. It's wonderful, though - almost too much to bear.

A few weeks later, they’re curled on Eponine’s bed, her head resting in Cosette’s lap, rain simpering at the windowpanes thinly. It’s odd, perhaps. Eponine knows by now the wild defiance stretched through Cosette’s hands, the petrichor lost in her hair, knows the way she freezes at noise, the way her face turns still and stony for a moment until she smiles at Eponine as if she’s an artwork, or some heroic protagonist of a fairytale.

 

Cosette likes to say she is. They share the stories, always. At night, against the gasping clouds and crumbling thunder, they whisper the fairy-tales between each other, pressed tight and precious on their lips. From one to the other.

 

Neither of them knew that as a child.

 

“Talk to me,” Cosette whispers far above her. Eponine’s been quiet for too long, she supposes, as she blinks away the dreams of the rain to hold her lover’s gaze. Her cheeks bloom when she smiles, and the acne stains are the most beautiful things Eponine’s ever seen.

 

“What about, Coco?” Eponine teases.

 

“Your face-” Cosette frowns, trying to piece together the tics and expressions and social codes just right. “It looks so _bland._ ”

 

“What’s it supposed to look like.”

 

She presses her lips together taut, the rusted red of an iron blade. “You know, _Nini_ \- vivacious. Lively. Romantic.”

 

Eponine laughs, takes Cosette’s hand from where it rests at the crown of her head and kisses the inside of her wrist. She’s wearing lotion, and it smells like incense.

 

“No-one’s ever called me romantic before, _lover,_ ” she smiles, tracing the warm curves of Cosette’s body. She knows Cosette loves the word, and that she loves the way it sounds on Eponine’s tongue – brash and defiant and bruisingly soft. Eponine uses it as much as possible.

 

“Maybe your beauty just intimidates them.”

 

Seeing the sapling of a smile on Cosette’s cheeks, all Eponine wants is to nurture it into the grin she’s so familiar with.

 

So. The truth. “I’m just-” she pauses, tasting the words on her tongue before speaking. “I’m just _unused_ to this kind of thing. The world’s all going to shit right now, and it always was in a lot of ways maybe, but now I’m poor and mixed and trans and queer and I just-” Breathe. Slowly. “No-one writes stories about those kinds of people, right?” Cosette leans down to press a dry kiss to her forehead, the fading callouses on her fingertips rubbing against Eponine’s cheek as she pulls her face closer. Eponine sighs, adding: “Not happy ones, anyway.”

 

“I know, Nini, I know.”

 

And she does. They’ve had similar experiences in a lot of ways, and though they deal with them very differently, there’s a comfort to be found in the reflection. Cosette’s white, of course, but other than that-

 

They flinch at noise just the same. They freeze up where rooms feel just a little too tense. And they press to one another in the dark just before dawn, kisses sweet enough to curdle honey.

 

Cosette smiles, and whispers firmly back to her, “We write our own stories, and you know that. We’ve had them for all of history, and I know we have the strength to tell them,” Cosette smiles, and the inky smoothness of her perfume lingers against her throat such that Eponine can’t help but press closer. Two women in love, and that’s all there is to say. Beautiful.

 

“I guess I do,” Eponine grins, and fingers her velvety dreadlocks playfully. “I never translated that poem for you, did I? I did some others, but not that one.”

 

“Which one?

 

“The Sappho one. The one I was singing when we first spoke.”

 

“Hmm,” Cosette raises her eyebrows wonkily, then pops her lips together. “Maybe I don’t remember, Nini.”

 

“You do, Coco. You as sappy a romantic as ever I knew.”

 

Cosette smiles and relents, and soon they’re lying down amid the molasses-thick light coming in blue through the curtains, curled against one another like question marks. Eponine presses the words into Cosette’s bare stomach. The surgery scars there glint peaceful and wide – this is a body remade.

 

Sappho’s words, then. Words born of love between two women millenia ago, and they taste like gold on her lips.

 

_He seems to me equal to the gods that man_

_whoever he is who opposite you_  
sits and listens close  
to your sweet speaking

 

_and lovely laughing – oh it_  
puts the heart in my chest on wings  
for when I look at you, even a moment, no speaking  
is left in me

 

_no: tongue breaks and thin_  
fire is racing under skin  
and in eyes no sight and drumming  
fills ears

 

_and cold sweat holds me and shaking_  
grips me all, greener than grass  
I am and dead – or almost  
I seem to me.

 

_But all is to be dared, because even a person of poverty_

 

The poem splinters off there. But by that point, Cosette has slipped into a heady rain-drowsiness, and the moaning clamour of the rain just above their heads – they’re in a _chambre de bonne,_ after all – continues Eponine’s words.

 

She’s not a fairy-tale woman. What she is, though, is really fucking stubborn, and it’s taken her long enough to nurture any kind of happiness in herself, that she’ll be damned if she loses it.

 

The rain collapses in on itself over and over, and time blooms existence into being. Paris trembles awake, and the lovers fall to slumber, the ancient words bruising their minds purple. Violet, perhaps. The poetry is aching – yes! - but it hums through them, and the stories it brings may give them steel enough to last the petty hours.

 

Then: sunlight once more. Then: love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Le Fin.
> 
> I realise that this chapter is mostly cuddling and we've missed off all of the relationship building et cetera, but honestly soft queer adoration is all I'm here for, so that's what we've got.
> 
> A chambre de bonne is the cheapest kind of rent you can get in Paris, and it's usually a tiny flat right up in the roof of an apartment building.
> 
> The poem is Sappho's fragment 31, and the translation used is by Anne Carson, which is one I particularly enjoy. There are some articles about it at:  
> https://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n01/emily-wilson/tongue-breaks and  
> https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/fragments-of-sappho.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written (early) for Les Mis Ladies Week 2018, which is a fantastic idea and I can't wait to see others' contributions! Feedback is always welcome.


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